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The Heart’s Liturgical Journey to Easter
Lent is a privileged example of how the Liturgy guides us on our path to union with Christ as our destiny, since the season of Lent began as the final preparation of the catechumens for Baptism on Easter.

According to Fr. Giussani, the first “authority” we must follow on our path to our destiny is the “heart,” understood not as the seat of our emotions and illusions, but as the seat of our rational judgments concerning reality and its correspondence to our desire for the infinite. The second authority, he said, is the Liturgy of the Church.
Lent is a privileged example of how the Liturgy guides us on our path to union with Christ as our destiny, since the season of Lent began as the final preparation of the catechumens for Baptism on Easter, and thus it is a good example of how the early Church saw the path to faith in Christ. Take a look at the readings for “Year A,” the “default” year for the present Roman Ritual. (There are three sets of readings. This year we are in Year B).

It begins indeed with the heart. All the activities, penances, and sacrifices associated with Lent are useful if they reflect what is happening in the heart, in our “hidden selves.” The Father alone can see what is hidden. What happens in the heart is born of the recognition of our total dependence on God. Without his continuously creative Word we would not exist. It is a matter of memory: “Remember, Man, that you are dust…”  This, of course, is the basis of the religious sense: our very existence, our desire for life and fulfillment, depend on a relationship that is beyond all our efforts to establish and sustain.

On the first Sunday of Lent, the reading from the Gospel always refers to the temptations of Jesus. The Church recognizes that the catechumens, just a few weeks from their Baptism, would be tempted to postpone the changes that conversion to Christianity often brought about, namely, separation from the rest of their families, from their spouses,  children, and friends, loss of jobs, property, and, during times of persecution, life itself. This temptation, to be the masters of their own lives and destiny, would be overcome by participating in Christ’s victory over the same temptations. It is a matter of “being tempted in Christ” and, also “in Christ,” emerging victorious over the temptation through the power of His victory over the Tempter.
The Gospel for the second Sunday of Lent is the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. The catechumens were reminded that their participation in Christ’s life would begin a transformation of their humanity in the present life, just as the glory of Christ was manifested in His humanity even before His Death and Resurrection.

The third Sunday’s Gospel for Year A is the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The early Christians saw the “living water” offered by Jesus as a sign of Baptism as the way the human encounter with Jesus takes place in this life. Indeed, the entire sacramental life was seen in this perspective, encouraging the catechumens to continue their path to Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharistic communion. (Year B proclaims the humanity of Jesus as the new Temple where God resides; Year C emphasizes the present life as time for the conversion of the heart.)
The fourth Sunday of Year A tells the story of the man born blind and his own path to faith. He was guided by reality lived in the memory of what had happened to him: “I know only one thing: I was blind, and now I can see.” His stubborn loyalty to this experience of reality will lead him to recognize who Jesus is.

Finally, the fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A, just a few days from their incorporation into the Church, offers the catechumens the Gospel of the resurrection of Lazarus to show that life in Christ is more powerful than death itself.
Then, the Liturgy will become the “School of Easter,” recalling the implications of life in Christ as the living of a new humanity.